Applying patterns or designs to carpets, mats, and other similar media is a popular and useful practice. Such a process may be used to welcome visitors, advertise a product or display a company's logo, or for decorating purposes, to name only a few uses. For many years, manual airbrushing, which uses compressed air to atomize and spray the dye, has been the only method for applying dye to these types of materials in patterns other than repeating or random types of patterns. Application by hand, however, is a time consuming and labor intensive project which often yields inconsistent results. Manually applying dyes to carpets, mats, and the like is subject to many problems. Each step in a manual process is subject to human error, and as the number of carpets to be finished with the same design increases, so does the possibility of inconsistent results. Variances in the patterns, such as dye thickness and pattern accuracy, is possible.
Historically, masks have been used to create patterns on carpets. In such a process, masks are placed on the rug and the entire rug is dyed minus the pattern of the masks. This method wastes dye because of the excessive spray coverage. Time is also wasted by the need to create, place, and remove the masks. Stencils also have been used to transfer a dye pattern to the dye receiving material. This process is similar to the use of masks except that only portions of the carpet not covered by the cut-out areas are dyed. Likewise, the use of stencils wastes dye materials, because of overspray. Also, the use of stencils and masks is not conducive to positioning dye in detailed patterns. The capability of applying the same dye pattern to a series of media is also desirable. Consequently, a need exists in the present industry for a faster, more accurate, and more consistent system for applying dye to dye receiving materials.
There have been some attempts at automating the application of dyes to media such as carpets, particularly in large manufacturing installations. In a typical arrangement of this type, a reciprocating dye spray head is positioned over a web conveyor moving an extended length of carpet thereunder. Such an arrangement is particularly useful for applying dye to the carpet in a repeating pattern or in a random pattern. However, the large scale of such an installation makes it unsuitable for smaller jobs, such as the application of custom patterns on small media, such as relatively small rugs, mats, and the like. Additionally, the arrangements heretofore employed are not flexible enough for quick change of the dye pattern to be applied or in the types of patterns which can be applied.